 So, a little bit about myself, I teach at a Catholic high school in Riverside, California. I know Miss Lucy here, she's a prisoner with me, she's from California, but is anyone else here from California? Any chance? Yeah, sort of. Okay. Well, some Californians, not so proud of being Californian over here, I could say. But yeah, so I teach at a local Catholic high school and so this topic is prompted by my interactions with my students. What I've noticed is there's a little bit of a resistance against sort of practicing Catholicism against taking their faith seriously because they think that by being Catholic, by taking their faith seriously, it means less for the self, it means having to compromise their own joy, right? They have something similar to what Father Louis was talking about. They think that God is against their happiness. They think that God is against their joy and they want more for themselves. Another thing I've noticed too is sort of the preponderance of the cult of the self, right? The cult of the self where my happiness comes first, my needs comes first, right? And anything that interferes with my happiness is not for me, right? We live in a time where the most popular way to take a picture is called what? The selfie, right? I live in a time, I mean I might look young, but I remember a time when you took a picture, you had to face it outwards, right? The whole point of taking a picture was to take a picture of the world, but now the whole idea of taking a picture is the self, right? So it's this focus on me, the cult of the self. And so the self has become the highest good, right? The self has become the highest good. Religion is tolerated insofar as religion coddles the self. The moment religion stops coddling the self, the moment religion, faith, or God starts to make demands on the self, we sacrifice what? The self? No, God, right? We sacrifice God. So the self is the one that must be pleased, the self is the one that must be coddled. Let me love whoever I want to love, let me act however I want to act, let me do whatever I want to do, right? All about satisfying the self. But making the self the highest good has only led to deletious effects on society, on the family, and on ourselves. And this is an old story, right? It's a story that traces its way all the way back to Adam and Eve. Now the author of the letter to St. John, so if you have your Bibles, turn with me. So the first letter of St. John, chapter 2, verse 15 to 17, all right? First John chapter 2, verse 15 to 17. This is what he writes, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away in the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. You see if we worship at the cult of the self precisely because we are not eternal, right? We are contingent beings. We don't last forever. And the things that we seek to satisfy the self, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, the lust of the eyes, these things don't satisfy. They evenness, they go. So it's bound to leave us unhappy, right? If we worship at the cult of the self and St. John saw this early on, and we see the love of the self manifests itself in myriad forms, right? People promiscuity, prestige and love of prestige, love of wealth for its own sake, thirst for entertainment, right? The world of sports, the world of film is a billion dollar industry, right? People are willing to sacrifice dollars, you know, hundreds of dollars for the sake of watching football. They rather go watch football than come to church, right? They rather go to the movies than come to church. They'd spend their money on these things hoping for happiness. But what happens? Usually the joys from these things last for just a while, right? Even if your team wins, how long does that joy last? I'd imagine Tom Brady is not going to be the most popular athlete in these parts. But one thing I remember, after he'd won three Super Bowls, right? After he won three Super Bowls, this was what he said. He said, you know what my favorite ring is? He said, the next one. So even after winning three Super Bowls, that wasn't enough to grant him happiness. He was still waiting for the next one, right? So love of the self, worship at the cult of the self, does not lead to eternal happiness. And St. Augustine famously expands on this love of the self and its effects in his famous book, The City of God, right? So in the city of God, he talks about two cities. One city is called the city of Rome, which is based on this love of the self. The next city is the city of God, right? The next city is the city of God, the divine order. And what he finds is, what characterizes the city of Rome is pride, right? What characterizes the city of Rome, and by Rome, he doesn't just mean the civilization of Rome. He means sort of the order of humanity outside of God, right? The human order outside of God. And this is what he says. This is how he defines pride. Pride is the beginning of sin. Pride is the beginning of sin. And when the soul abandons him, God, to whom it ought to cleave as its end and becomes a kind of end in itself, right? So that's the beginning of sin, pride. When we make the self into the highest good, my professor used to call this wanting to be the masters of our own universe, right? And this is the mistake that we as human beings tend to make. And I'll show this from all the way back from the Old Testament. The mistake that we tend to make or that we make is, we think that in order to become like God, we must assert the self. We must elevate the self. We must puff ourselves up, right? We think that what's most important about life is how many titles appear at the beginning at the end of our name, right? And actually, we don't bring those titles at the end of our name, right? The only title that matters is if we get the title saint, right? But so we think that in order to be like God, we have to have this spirit of acquisitiveness. We have to assert the self. We have to be prideful. But that's actually the mistake that we make. And this is where we see kind of the subtlety and the cunning of the devil. So I want to begin the exploration of Scripture by first going to the book of Genesis, right? So the book of Genesis, if you turn with me to Genesis chapter three. So this is right at the heart, this is right at the fall. When original sin appears in what's called the libido dominandi, right? Or concupiscence. So beginning with verse one, now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord had made. He said to the woman, did God say you shall not eat of any tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. This is where the subtlety of the serpent appears. Because the serpent did not say, you know what? Why don't you worship me, right? That's not what the serpent said. Sin doesn't say worship him. The trick that Satan, the deception of Satan here is why don't you be your own God, right? Why don't you worship yourself, right? Why don't you take things into your own hands so that you can be your own God, right? And that is one of the most powerful deceptions there is, because I'm pretty sure if someone like Satan appeared today in our midst and told you to worship him, I'm almost 100% certain that you would not worship this figure causing, right? Pretty sure, I would hope so. But if someone tells you to worship yourself, all right, then that's maybe a more alluring temptation, right? And the way we worship ourselves is not by building altars to the self. No, right? It's indulging our appetites, right? Indulging our appetites, right? Indulging this love for prestige, right? You have maybe one or two cars that you need, but why not buy a third one, right? Why don't you, what's it called? You see someone who you shouldn't be looking at, that's how we worship the self, right? And so that is what Satan holds out, right? Deceiving Eve, Adam and Eve into thinking in order to be like God, you have to become your own God, right? And what's funny is, or the sad irony of this is, when God created Adam and Eve, he created them what? He created them in the image and likeness of God. So they were already like God, they were already like God. It's in obeying God that we are most true to the image of God in ourselves, right? Not in worshiping the self. So they were already like God, but Satan made them forget that, deceive them into thinking that they had to be the masters of their own universe, to love the self. And because of that, we have original sin. And that theme of this worship of the self, this theme of acquisitiveness, wanting to be like God continues in Genesis. So it's kind of, it becomes endemic in the story of Genesis. So later on in Genesis chapter 10, Nimrod, right? Nimrod in chapter 10, verse nine, he's described as a mighty hunter before the Lord. In the Hebrew that before can also be translated as against. He was a mighty hunter against the Lord, right? And out of that comes these kingdoms, including Assyria, Nineveh, right? We remember kind of what these cities are about. And then after the flood, in Genesis chapter 11, we see some, we see an example of humor. Don't think that the Bible is not without its humor. The Bible has comedy as well. And this is one example of it, right? So in Genesis chapter 11, in verse one, it's the story of the tower of Babel, right? So it says, now the whole earth had one language and few words. And as men migrated from the east, they found a plane in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city, right? Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. And let us make a name for God, for ourselves, right? Let us make a name for ourselves. Again, the worship of the self, right? The cult of the self. Lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. Because what they were trying to do was they were trying to preempt God, right? Remember what happened in the flood, right? Human being sinned, and so God, you know, sent the flood. And so they were trying to say, you know what? If we build a tower that reaches the heavens, maybe we can stop God, right? From destroying us one day. But here's what's funny. They build a tower and no matter how high they build the tower, in verse five it says, and the Lord came down to see the city and the tower. No matter how high was the tower they built, God still had to come down. No matter how high we elevate ourselves, we will never get to God. Because we are that puny. God still has to make the move to come down, right? And that's a big lesson throughout Scripture. Moving on now to Ezekiel 28, just to kind of drive this theme home. Ezekiel chapter 28, this is the famous song against the king of Tyre, right? So Ezekiel 28, beginning with, well, we'll start with verse one. The word of the Lord came to me, son of man, say to the prince of Tyre. So this can be interpreted in several ways. The prince of Tyre could be literally the prince of Tyre. The prince of Tyre could also be Adam, right, or humanity. And the prince of Tyre could also be understood as Lucifer, okay? So there's three levels to this. So he says, your son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, thus says the Lord God. Because your heart is proud, and you have said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of the gods in the heart of the seas. Yet you are but a man and no God, though you consider yourself wise as a God, right? You think you're a God. You elevate yourself. You make yourself as a God, and yet you are not a God. Yet you are not a God. And then God says in verse nine, will you still say I'm a God in the presence of those who slay you, though you are but a man and no God in the hands of those who wound you? So throughout Scripture, we see that when human beings sin, they sin because they worship the self, right? They want to become their own gods. They want to be the masters of their own universe. They want to take things into their own hands. And that leads to disaster, right? That leads to disaster. I asked my students, right? I asked my students in class, the ones who think that life is only about yourself, putting yourself first. Imagine a family, right? Imagine a family where everyone in that family, mother, father, children, all only live for themselves. They could care less for each other. They're only about themselves. I'm married to my wife because she's pretty, and because I can get something for her. My wife marries me because I'm rich, and even though I'm not, she'll tell you that. But imagine my wife marries me because I'm wealthy and rich, and only that. And my children love us only because of the money that we give. How happy do you think that family can be? Not for long, right? Because what happens when the looks go? When the looks go, you start, you know, that's when the wandering eyes begin, right? What happens when the money goes? Wife goes too, right? Children maybe don't respect the parents as much. Can you imagine a friendship where in that friendship, you're only friends with that person insofar as you can get something from that person? How long do you think that friendship can last? Not too long, right? Not too long. Now, multiply that by hundreds. Multiply that by thousands. Imagine a city where everyone lives for themselves. Where everyone worships at the cult of the self. What do you think happens to that city? Imagine a country where everyone lives for themselves, right? Yesterday, or was it today? Dr. Healy brought this up, right? We're experiencing this jubilee. For 49 years, innocent children were slaughtered because of worship of the cult of the self, right? Not wanting to sacrifice for those who are vulnerable. Lives are at stake here. So this love of the self, the aggrandizement of the self is an old story and it's a well-worn path that has left behind a trail of destruction, broken families, divorce, disease, death, alienation, poverty, dysfunction, you name it, right? That those are the consequences of this worship of the self, the cult of the self. Making the self the highest good, wanting to be our own gods. And what's funny is the Bible, God, understands this love of the self as being enslaved. When you are so beholden to the cult of the self, we become slaves to sin, right? We become slaves to sin. It is described as a spiritual death, it is described as a spiritual death. And the antidote, the medicine for this story, for this old story comes from a more lasting and eternal story. It is the story at the heart of reality of a God who is love and who wills to share in that love and to make us partakers of that love, right? The antidote to that is love. And this is another thing too, I think, in modernity, we get love mixed up, right? We think that love is, what, feelings. A lot of young people think that, right? Love is just feelings, strong emotions, right? That's why they start dating, they have their boyfriends and girlfriends, and the next thing you know, next week they're broken up and with someone else, at least in high school. So transitory, right? Because they mistake love for strong feelings. I asked them, what happens when those feelings go then? Does the love go too? So evidently it can't be love, right? So love is something, it's more than just feeling. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas defines love as what? Love is willing the good of the other as other, breaking out of the buffered self, breaking out of the self. And so God wills to share this love with us. In 2 Peter chapter one, so in the second letter of Peter chapter one verse three to four, it says, his divine power is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises that through these you may escape from corruption that is in the world because of passion, right? Love of the self and become partakers of the divine nature. God wants us to be like him and to be like him, he is love. We ought to love, right? To love the other for the sake of the other, not for our own sake. Now, I owe this to Bishop Barron's exegesis of the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Bishop Barron, as he was talking about it, he said that the Good Samaritan healed by giving pouring oil and wine, right? Pouring oil and wine. Well, he interpreted that as the sacramental order, right? Oil, the oil of anointing, right? Which we give at baptism, at confirmation, right, at last-unction holy orders and the wine, right? The wine of the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ, right? Which is symbolizing that. So Christ heals by the sacramental order. And so the sacramental order, Christ uses the sacramental order to heal us from the delusion of worshiping at the cult of the self, to heal us from this idea that we can become our own gods, that we can become the masters of our own universe, right? And so at the heart of the sacramental order, instead of worshiping the self, it is rooted, it is rooted in the sacrifice of Christ. So when I say that the sacrifice of Christ is the form of the sacraments, what I mean is the self-giving of Christ is what gives intelligibility to the sacraments, right? It is what is the foundation of the sacraments. And I'll show you some examples from, you know, from some specific sacraments and from Scripture, right? So very quickly, if we turn to Philippians chapter 2, Philippians chapter 2, this becomes the foundation to show us what God really is about, right? This is what God really is about. Humans thought that becoming like God is to elevate the self, popping up the self, a spirit of acquisitiveness, but Jesus shows what God really is about, all right? So in Philippians chapter 2, have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped. But what did he do? He emptied himself, canosis, right? Emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Do you see the movement here? So compare that movement with Adam, right? With the Tower of Babel, with Ezekiel. That movement was what? Down, up, right? Going, you know, from being human, trying to elevate the self, right? Whereas you compare the movement of Christ here in the book of Philippians, it is a movement up of what? Up, down, right? Though he was in the form of God, emptied himself, right? Took the form of a servant, humbled himself, became obedient to death, even death on the cross, right? And then what do we say when we recite the Apostle's Creed? He descended into hell. That's what our God is about, right? Not this movement of down, up, but a movement of bottom, of up, down, right? Humbling himself, even to the point of the most humiliating death. And then not just that, but descending into the depths of hell itself. Hans-Erz von Balthasar, famous Swiss theologian in Love Alone is Credible, argues that the obedience of Christ, as manifested on the cross, offers the form of Christian love. So what that means is, do you want to know what love is about? What he's saying is, you want to know what love is about? Look at the cross, right? Do you want to know what love is about? Look at the cross. And I think this is a powerful, this is one powerful reason that we should appreciate about being Catholics, because every time we enter into church, what do we see? Not just an empty cross, right? We see the crucifix, right? The corpus, because we see the consequences of love. Because of love does not hurt, right? If there is no sacrifice, then that's not love, right? You know you love something when you're willing to suffer for it, right? That's where the term passion comes from, actually, right? So if you want to know your passion about something, are you willing to suffer for that thing, right? If not, then you're not really passionate about it, you just like it, right? But if you say that you're passionate about your, whatever it is, your family, sports, your country, the true test is, are you willing to suffer and even die, right? That's what passion is. That's why we call it the passion, right? This willingness to die. So that is imparted through the sacraments in the life of the church, right? That is what ought to heal us from this worship of the self, looking at the cross, looking at Christ's willingness to give himself, to die, right? And that is what is given in each of the sacraments. That is what we receive in each of the sacraments, beginning with baptism. So to show from Scripture, right? So in Romans chapter six, Romans chapter six, Paul says this is what baptism is about. Romans chapter six, beginning with verse three and verse four, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death, right? We were baptized into His death. As soon as we receive baptism, we receive sort of the death of, we participate in the death of Christ, right? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. So in baptism, we receive and participate in the death of Christ so that we might rise to newness of life with Him, right? So that we are not dead in sin because this idea of living for the self, worshiping the self, acquisitiveness, the libido dominandi, that is actual death. That's not life, right? People think that that's what life is about, right? Living for the self, getting as much money as you can, enjoying as much pleasure as you can, right? Living for yourself. People think that that's life, but no, that's death, right? True life is love, the love that gives of the self, right? The love that gives of the self because whoever wants to save his life, Jesus said, what? We'll lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it, right? So that's what baptism is about. And by the way, here's another sort of modern fallacy I'd like to counter. In one of my graduate classes, the professor, not non-Christian, and he kind of wanted to reduce all, you know, he wanted to kind of show that all religions are the same, right? That all religions are nothing special with Christianity, right? So he was trying to say that, you know what? All religious rituals are really about, you know, reverence, reverencing this other, trying to curry favor from this divine other, right? So all religions are like that, right? So Christianity included. So all these religious rituals are just to get something from God. Well, if we understand the sacramental order, that's actually not what Christianity is about, because the whole idea of the sacramental order is the opposite of that, right? The whole idea of the sacramental order is what can I do for God? Because of what he has done for me, right? Death to the self, that's unlike any other religion I know, right? That's unlike any other religion I know, and it is in this way that Christianity marks itself apart as well, right? And so I think this is another sort of powerful antidote to, you know, this modern narrative that all religions are alike. Because we are the only religion that celebrates a God, that worships a God who is crucified, right? We are the only religion that worships, that dares to worship a God that is crucified, okay? So that's the first example of baptism, right? We are baptized into Christ's death, and so baptism is not just being initiated into religion for the sake of statistics, right? It's not just being, you know, it's not just being initiated just so that you can say that you're Christian. When we are baptized, right? When we are baptized, we participate in the death of Christ, right? We participate in the death of Christ. And 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 12 to 13, this is what St. Paul says, for just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body, right? By one spirit, we were baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. So when we are baptized, we are baptized into the body of Christ. And let's not forget, the body of Christ is the body that was given up and broken up for our sake, for our salvation, right? It is the body that was beaten, suffered, died for our sake. So when we are baptized, we are baptized into that body, right? And we don't have to fear that because we believe in the resurrection, right? But the cross comes with the territory, right? The cross comes with the territory. If we are baptized Catholic Christian, there is no way around it. We can't avoid the cross, right? The cross gives us our very vocation, tells us how we ought to live. The cross, right, the cross. In Colossians, that's why I think St. Paul was able to confidently say in Colossians, now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh, I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, right? Because St. Paul recognized that when we are baptized into the body of Christ, right? When we suffer, we suffer as part of that body, right? We suffer as part of that body. So baptism restores in us the ability to love as God loves, a love that goes to the point of death, a love that descends into hell, right? A love that dares to venture forth into the realm of death. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, right, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, sorry, there's a lot of Bible verse hopping. So let it not be said that Catholics don't read the Bible, right? Let it not be said that we as Catholics don't read the Bible. So 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 10 to 11, this is what St. Paul says, always carrying in the body the what? The death of Jesus. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. As baptized Christians, we carry the death of Christ within us, right? By virtue of our baptisms, right? And so it is with the Eucharist, right? So it is with the Eucharist. When we consume the Eucharist, the consuming of the Eucharist is itself a proclamation of Christ's death and resurrection, right? And how many of you have heard that famous maxim, you are what you eat, right? You are what you eat. Well, that's what's supposed to happen when we consume the Eucharist. We are supposed to become icons of Christ, right? We are supposed to become icons of Christ to the world so that when we go on into the world, people see not just us, but people see Christ through us. And the Christ of what? The Christ of the cross, right? The Christ who said, this is my body, right? Which has been given for you, right? This is my blood which has been poured out for you because what God is, is a love that always gives of himself, that pours out of himself, right? Love is only love when you give all. Love is only love when you give all. Try asking someone, right? Try asking your spouse. See if they'll agree to this. Is it okay if I love you 99%, right? Is it okay if I love you 99.9%, that's still not enough, right? When someone says that they love you, you want them to love you with all their heart, right? Because love knows no half-measures. Love gives of itself so fully, right? In the Eucharist, when we receive our Lord, we say we receive Him, what? Body, blood, soul, divinity. Christ holds nothing back from us, right? And so when we receive Christ, we now should not hold back anything from the world of ourselves either, right? Give everything of ourselves, pour ourselves out. I think that's what will transform the world, right? That's what will transform the world. That's what ought to transform our relationships, giving everything that we can, right? Until it hurts because that's what love is, right? That's what love is. Love knows no half-measures. You can't love someone 50%, you can't even love someone 99%. If you love someone, you've got to love them 100%. It's all the way, right? You've got to be willing to die for them. And that too, incidentally, is found in the sacrament of marriage, right? In the sacrament of marriage. So if you turn it with me to Ephesians chapter 5. So in this section of the Bible, we tend to get lost talking about the authority, which is important, right? The authority and the submission and people get caught up in that debate. But there's actually something more interesting going on here, right? There's something more interesting going on here because St. Paul actually shows that Christian marriage, the Christian sacrament of marriage, is actually transfigured. It's not just any old marriage. It's a different kind of marriage altogether because this is what he says, be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ, wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. Done. Finished. That's it. That's all he said. No, right? He continues. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. And then it gets interesting because he says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Love your wives as Christ loved the church as he gave himself up for her. So this idea of sacrifice, this idea of giving up yourself is even part of the sacrament of marriage. It is part of the order of marriage. The husband is supposed to be an icon of Christ as the wife is supposed to be an icon of the church. So the same way the church ought to love the husband, the church ought to love Christ with all her heart, all her mind, body, and soul, so should wives love their husbands. But he doesn't stop there. He says husbands ought to love their wives the way Christ loved the church. So marriage is supposed to be this icon of Christ's love for the church. If you don't believe me, it's even found in the book of Revelation, right? This link between marriage and sacrifice, it's also found in the book of Revelation because if you turn to the book of Revelation in chapter 21, verse 9, there's something very odd here that if we kind of glance over, we won't catch, right? This is what it says in Revelation chapter 21, verse 9, I'll just begin at the second part. Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. Come I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. Now I don't know how many of you here are married to lambs. We don't say that you're married to lamb, you don't call your husband a lamb, right? You might call him a pushover, but you don't call him a lamb, not just a joke. But you certainly don't call your husband a lamb, right? So this idea of pointing out that the bride is married to the lamb again points out the sacrificial aspect of marriage, right? The sacrificial aspect of the sacrament of marriage, right? That at the heart of marriage as well, the heart of Christian marriage is this idea that the husband is supposed to be an icon of Christ and the bride is supposed to, the wife is supposed to be an icon of the church. So Christian marriage transfigures the institution of marriage. It's not just any old other marriage, right? It's different, it's a bond, it's a covenant that involves the giving of the self, right? It's a bond that involves the giving of the self. Even the sacrament of confession earlier today, Dr. Bergsmann, right? He wrote up John chapter 20, John chapter 20, which is when Christ instituted the sacrament of reconciliation. Before he gave the disciples the authority to forgive, this is what he did when he first shows up. In verse 19, when he first appears, he says, peace be with you, and then he shows them his hands and his side. He shows them his wounds. He says peace. He shows his wounds and then he gives them the authority to forgive, right? So again, underlying the sacrament of reconciliation is the sacrifice of Christ, the wounds of Christ, right? That reconciliation was bought at the price of Christ's own body, the suffering that he endured. So the sacrifice of Christ is the foundation, right? The very form, the intelligibility of the sacraments. And I think if we take that seriously, it should transform how we receive the sacraments, right? When we come to Mass and when we receive the Eucharist, we realize that we're supposed to go out and become the hands and feet of Christ. We're supposed to transform the world, become icons of Christ. And when we're baptized Christians, we realize that we carry the death of Christ in us. So we love as Christ loves, even in marriage, even in the priesthood, right? Marriage is a sort of analogy of marriage, right? Where the priest is married to the church in persona Christi, so to speak. Because Christ's self-giving sort of pervades each of the sacraments. So in conclusion, I just want to say, the sacraments actually heal us. The sacraments heal us. When we receive the sacraments, it draws us, it breaks us out of this cult of the self. It breaks us out of the buffer itself, right? When we come into contact with Christ, we are not the same. We are not the same because now we are challenged to love as Christ loved. We are configured to pour out our lives as an offering as Christ did. The sacraments, they turn us into icons of the crucified Christ so that Christ can accomplish what he promised in John chapter 12 verse 32, right? This is what he promised in John chapter 12 verse 32. He says here, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. When I am lifted up from the earth, meaning on the cross, I will draw all men to myself. Well, perhaps if we become icons of that Christ, right? The crucified Christ, allowing ourselves to be crucified, so to speak, like him, to love like him. We too can draw the world to the church, right? Draw the world to the body of Christ. I think there's some evangelistic potential there, right? When Christians love as Christ, when we take seriously the sacrifice of Christ in each one of our vocations in our lives, I think that has a powerful evangelistic effect, a powerful transformative effect in our relationships, in ourselves, in our society. So thank you and God bless. So with that, we get to questions. Last night, Scott Han mentioned a little bit about your journey. Would you be willing to share something about your journey to Catholicism? Yeah, I guess, yeah, if you don't mind me sharing a little bit about my journey. So I was born into an Adventist family. My mother is and remains Adventist. My father was actually Muslim. So I was born into that kind of household and sort of early on there was something beguiling about Jesus that I saw my mom's books and I saw Jesus crucified and I asked her, who is that? And she said, oh, that's God. I thought, well, that's strange. Why is God on the cross? So that was one of the things that I'd say drew me to want to be Christian or at least want to learn more about her faith. But in any case, so I early on already I chose, I wanted to be Christian. I chose to be Adventist. Another thing too is I'd see my mom receive, they do communion every 13 weeks or so. So I saw her receive communion and I thought I want to participate in that too. So those two things were sort of integral to me wanting to become Christian, at least, right, become Adventist. So I grew up, I decided I wanted to become a pastor. Because of the debates between my parents about the divinity of Christ, I decided I want to spend my sort of my education learning about how do I justify the divinity of Christ. So that's kind of what drew me to become a pastor. But once I became a pastor, there were several questions that drew me to, there were several questions that made me realize that maybe I'm not in the right tradition. One was, some of my youth came up to me and asked me, hey pastor, why should I, why should I come physically to church? Why can't I just worship, you know, from the internet, like watching the internet at home? Or why can't I just go to the beach and pray to God? Why is that not enough? So that was one question, right, having to kind of find an answer for, why do you actually have to come to church physically? And what I found was, within the Adventist tradition, I had nothing. Sort of, I didn't really have much to say within the Adventist tradition. And so it was in, you know, studying the history of liturgy and what liturgy was about that ultimately led me to reading about the Eucharist and, you know, understanding that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. So that was one factor that led me to Catholicism. And then I'd say the second one is a more philosophical one, which is I had the question of what is beauty? How do I define beauty, right? And again, within the Adventist tradition, I didn't have the answers. But my friend, who at the time was wrestling with Catholicism and what's funny is I ended up in the church and he's not in the church. But he pointed me towards von Balthasar. He pointed me to some of the early church fathers. And that led me to sort of also study Catholicism, you know, deeper. And I realized that the Catholic Church is confident enough to say that there is such a thing as truth, right? The Catholic Church does not, you know, kind of compromise and say, oh, you know, everyone has a little bit of truth and, you know, you have your truth and I have my truth, right? The Catholic Church is brave enough to say, no, there is a truth, right? And we can't know it through reason and through revelation. And so that was something I found particularly attractive, right? So I guess, you know, those were some of the factors that drew me out and brought me here to this very point. Yes. First of all, thank you. This is really, really beautiful. I wanted you to speak a little bit to the notion of freedom. And as same with Father Morazzini's talk, we can think that the path of virtue takes something from us. Like I'm not allowed to do certain things. The self, the cult of self, if you're telling me I have to live a self-giving, what am I going to do? It's going to cost me. And that, I think, is a pervasive feeling in our culture because people think you're taking a freedom away. But in fact, God's not an imposition on my freedom. He's the cause and the condition for it. I heard Bishop Barron say that. I stole that. I would just, your thoughts on that. Just a take on freedom versus this cult of self and authentic freedom. Well, yeah, you know, that's actually, how do I say? There's more than one way that we can think of freedom. So there's this Catholic theologian. I forgot the book, but his name is Father Surveys Pinkare. He's a Dominican. And he talks about two different kinds of freedom. So there's one kind of freedom which is called the freedom of indifference, which is this notion of I do whatever I want, however I please, and just so long I have the freedom of choice to act however I please, that's freedom. So it's called freedom of indifference because it is a kind of freedom that is indifferent to the good. It is the kind of freedom that is indifferent to that which is true. And so that's, I'd say, the dominant understanding of freedom. And what's ironic is it has its roots in a Catholic thinker, I think William of Occam, Don Skotis, that line of sort of Catholic philosophy has been responsible for the development of that notion of freedom. On the other hand, Surveys Pinkare, he points out, and I guess being a Dominican, and I guess this is the wrong place to talk about it, being Franciscan University, but being a Dominican, he says that we need to get back more to the other notion, the St. Thomas Aquinas notion of freedom, which is the freedom of excellence, which is when you do, we all have free will, free choice of the will, we all have free choice of the will, but when you conform your will to the good, when you conform your intellect to the true, that is when you are free, that is when you're free. And I think recovering some sense of that kind of freedom would be helpful, especially for young people today, especially for young people today. So that's what's called the freedom of excellence. So I don't recall the book, so if I remember, I'll let you know, but Survey Pinker wrote this book that talks about, compares those two forms of freedom. Yes. People in our culture who don't know Christ and maybe don't believe in God or whatever, they don't understand the culture of freedom that you're talking about. And I have a friend whose wife just left him and he seems to be somewhat indifferent as to whether she comes back or not. And I'm wondering, how do you approach people who are not Catholic, don't understand freedom from your point of view to at least begin to see something? Thank you for that question. Yeah, I guess for me, the approach that has worked is I start with asking questions. So sort of by asking questions, how would you define freedom, let's say, right? And start the conversation there. And so ask, what do you think freedom is? And let's say they say, okay, yeah, freedom means being able to do whatever I wanna do. And have you considered this, perhaps asking them, have you considered maybe a different way to think about freedom because is it really freedom if it comes at the expense of another person's happiness, right? You know, this idea that, because with this kind of freedom where you're indifferent to the good, then your freedom collides with my freedom, let's say, right? And your happiness collides with my happiness. And so we end up with a society or a family where it's just competing freedoms. Is that really freedom, right? So maybe just kind of pointing out the potential pitfalls first. So asking questions, pointing potential pitfalls, and then maybe that might provide an opening for further conversation. But so in my limited experience, that's what I'd give. Of course, praying for that family, so it would be most helpful too. So yeah, thank you for sending. Thank you for your talk and for all the information you gave. I was really excited to attend because I'm a catechist for sacramental preparation for kiddos. So this is, I'm a lot of fun. My question is, what do you consider the most, I guess the most important parts of this lecture, this argument to teach kids who are preparing for sacraments. I want to focus on teaching them that Christ's sacrifice is the foundation of the sacraments that we find freedom in loving others as Christ loved us, right? And that's where we find freedom in Christ's love. Is there anything else that you consider to be the most important? And my job of teaching kiddos about the importance of Christ in the sacraments. I suppose for kids, maybe a helpful thing would not just be to have them think about it, but have them practice. So whenever you can, giving them chances and opportunities to kind of, whether in games or in sort of team building activities that allow them to live out this virtue of self-giving in some way, that would be sort of a powerful way to kind of reinforce that further. So yeah, that's one thing I'd say, giving them this chance to practice that there'll be a powerful way to reinforce it. Does that help? Okay, so I think. I think that my question is quite related to this question, but what I would say in speaking to you, how do you begin to introduce to them the idea of finding authentic love through self-gift, through self-sacrifice in a culture that is, let's just say not conducive to understand that. How do you present to the youth of today in today's culture the idea of authentic love through gift of self, through sacrificial self-sacrifice? Which is so counterculture. Yeah, I suppose again, another thing that's worked in the class for me has been to help them see when you live for yourself, kind of asking them questions of, when you, let's say, when you experience the pleasure of a really delicious meal, how long does that last? You know, they'll tell me an hour and then what happens after that? On to the next one, right? When you watch a really good movie or when you go on this roller coaster, the thrill from that lasts how long? So, just by asking, I like to have, I guess the way I do things is I like to ask questions and yeah, what I try to, in asking these questions, what I try to help them see is how transitory all these pleasurable experiences that they have, I mean, they're not bad in itself, necessarily some of them, but they're so fleeting. And so if you're living your life just chasing after these pleasures, or even wealth, I'll say, right? Like, even if you're the wealthiest person in the world, I might give them examples of some wealthy people who are, let's say, maybe unhappy, perhaps, so from celebrities, right? Cause that's kind of their language. So from pop culture, so I might ask such and such a person has all the money in the world, but look how their family life has suffered, right? Like, are they really happy? So asking them that question, kind of making them reflect back and see, yeah, you know what, maybe this idea of living for myself, so drawing from popular culture, let's say, asking questions from their own experience might help them to see that there is more to life than living for the self, right? There is, and also like just showing them that, you know, even if you think that being with this person, right, your boyfriend, your girlfriend now, this person is just a finite human being, right? And we have, because God created us in his image, we have infinite desires, so to speak, right? And so this finite human being could not possibly satisfy every desire I have. The only one who can satisfy that every desire is God, right? To quote Saint Augustine from Father Louis, talk just now again, right? You created us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. So every sort of pleasure in this world ultimately is transitory and even-esses. Doesn't last, so kind of helping them see that for themselves kind of might be a way to, as a conversation starter. Does that help any other questions? Well, you know, thank you so much. You've been very gracious. God bless.